Snapshots of Minerva
by smalltumbleweed
Summary: Another take on Minerva's girlhood. Femslash to come. Story is unlikely to be chronological.
1. Chapter 1

When she was nine, Minerva McGonagall woke to her parents in the middle of blazing row.

"One of my children bloody _will_ be a fiddle player!" her dad stormed. "Bad enough I have six girls and another one the way!"

"This one's a girl, Frank, how many times have I told you?" that was her ma, soothing, not entirely hiding the fear in her voice.

Her dad swore, and then "Not bloody likely! Another ruddy, useless, girl and my own youngest brother with three fine sons already!"

"So give the fiddle to one of them!" her ma returned, anger overtaking her voice.

Her dad swore again. Minerva shivered as she heard him slam a chair against the floor, and then blinked in surprise as she heard her ma say,

"Or take Minerva, for all I care!"

In the attic room she shared with her sisters, Minerva felt like she'd been slapped.

"She's better off yours. Something funny about that child" her ma added, anger lacing every word.

"MINERVA!" her dad had bellowed then. Minerva had pattered down the steep stair from the attic, self-conscious as she heard her sisters stir awake, and appeared in front of her dad, still in her nightdress.

"Play," he'd ordered her, putting her great great grand dad's fiddle into her arms. "Just a scale. Anything," he added, more quietly now.

She hadn't needed telling twice. The fiddle, which looked like a toy next to her dad, was giant in Minerva's arms. And she never really felt she knew, what coaxed "Drowsy Maggie" out of her fingertips so perfectly that night, but when she'd played both sections of the tune through she was aware of her dad knelt before her, as though in prayer. But that was absurd, for she knew he never really prayed, not even in church.

"Jesus!" he exclaimed, low and reverent.

"Are you happy now?" her ma spat at him, in bitterness. "Can the lass go back to sleep now?" she put a tentative hand on Minerva's shoulder.

"That's no lass," he muttered, turning his back on them to put the fiddle carefully back in its case.

Dismissed, Minerva crept back up to bed and feigned sleep.


	2. Chapter 2

That was the memory the child allowed Dumbledore to take from her, instead of explaining why she could never attend Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. As soon as he'd emerged from the Pensieve, Dumbledore cast a Disillusionment charm on himself and Apparated back to the girl's village. A child that powerfully magical would do more harm than good in the Muggle world.

He found her easily, fiddling for the the village ceilagh dressed in a boy's shirt and trousers, her wild short curls flopping in her face. The pub's floor had been cleared and was full to the bursting with couples dancing. The band was composed of a motley assortment of musicians: an accordian, a guitar, played by Frank McGonagall himself, an upright bass, and three fiddles.

As the tune climaxed through the B section, the other fiddles dropped back, and Minerva alone continued the melody. She played with the sincere clarity of an altar boy's voice. The tune sparkled from her deft fingers, immaculate and soaring, so that every other instrument sounded shabby next to her.

"Jesus, but the lass is that good!" a man in a shabby three piece suit next to the Disillusioned Dumbledore muttered.

"Aye" the neighbor agreed. "Pity McGonagall never got that son he wanted."

"The lass is something else again," said the man in the suit. "Started playing the ceilaghs just two years ago, picked up the fiddle at the same time. Natural! Never heard anything like it."

"Or old McGongall beat it into her and said she picked it up natural" the neighbor put in skeptically.

"Ah, don't say things like that, Will" the man in the suit admonished.

"I don't know, but McGonagall's something when he's riled."

"He loves that lass though. Closest he's got to a son."

At that point the tune ended in a roar of raucous applause from the dancers, drowning out the conversation. McGonagall picked Minerva up and held her on his shoulders, high above a sea of applause. Though the child was flushed with exertion from playing, and was smiling down at the dancers applauding her, Dumbledore noted that her eyes held none of the light they had when she was playing.

Dumbledore, considered his possibilities. He had spoken, once, with both of her parents, who had both flatly refused to send her to Hogwarts. "She's the only son I have" her father had replied with a tone of finality. "It's talent. Not magic" were the only words the child's mother had spoken. Minerva herself stood resolutely by and scuffed at the floor with heel. The anxiety of the other girls' faces spying in the doorway had not escaped him.

Minerva had shown him down the lane, stubbornly insisting that she could never attend Hogwarts School. _ Do you wish to attend Hogwarts?_ he had asked her, and the child nodded fervently. _If I could take you back to the first night I played fiddle, you would know why I can't leave, _she said.

Dumbledore told Professor Dippit that he was prepared to perform magic on Muggles, if necessary, to bring the child to Hogwarts. What was astonishing about Minerva's particular expression of her nascent magic was that not only had she learned to control it, she had learned how to cover it, and make the things she could do seem ordinary. Dumbledore would have staked a good many galleons on a bet that Minerva was accomplishing her housework using magic to speed it up, making more of the eggs she found in the henhouse.

In the end, she did not bring the fiddle with her. Nor did she ask what immensely complicated spells Dumbledore had used to convince her dad to allow her to go with him. Her dad rose early and was gone to work before Minerva was awake on the day she left for school. She watched, wide-eyed, as Dumbledore tapped her trunk with his wand and sent it "ahead." She kissed her ma and each of her sisters goodbye, took Dumbledore's elbow and closed her eyes as he turned on the spot.


End file.
